


Nakajima Atsushi and the Furry Brigade, As Narrated By Akutagawa Ryuunosuke and, On Occasion, the Archivist

by advanced_fanatic



Series: Bungou Stray Archives [6]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast), 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Akutagawa Ryuunosuke-centric (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dazai Osamu Needs a Hug (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dazai Osamu is a Mess (Bungou Stray Dogs), Fights, Fist Fights, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Kunikida Doppo Is So Done (Bungou Stray Dogs), Major Character Injury, Major Character Undeath, Minor Akutagawa Ryuunosuke/Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Minor Kunikida Doppo/Dazai Osamu (Bungou Stray Dogs), POV Akutagawa Ryuunosuke (Bungou Stray Dogs), Protective Kunikida Doppo (Bungou Stray Dogs), Protective Siblings, The Hunt, The Lonely - Freeform, Tiger Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), akutagawa doesn't know anyone's name, also another character may or may not die for a short period of time, in which a character previously believed to be dead is no longer quite so dead, it's really up to your own interpretation, many many characters need hugs actually, of a sort, the abilities as translated into tma world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26161798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/advanced_fanatic/pseuds/advanced_fanatic
Summary: Alternatively: the search for Dazai, and the various ways it goes extremely wrong.
Relationships: Akutagawa Ryuunosuke & Dazai Osamu & Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Akutagawa Ryuunosuke & Dazai Osamu (Bungou Stray Dogs), Akutagawa Ryuunosuke & Izumi Kyouka & Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Akutagawa Ryuunosuke & Izumi Kyouka (Bungou Stray Dogs), Akutagawa Ryuunosuke & Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dazai Osamu & Izumi Kyouka & Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dazai Osamu & Izumi Kyouka (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dazai Osamu & Kunikida Doppo (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dazai Osamu & Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Izumi Kyouka & Lucy Maud Montgomery & Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Izumi Kyouka & Lucy Maud Montgomery (Bungou Stray Dogs), Lucy Maud Montgomery & Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs)
Series: Bungou Stray Archives [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1740364
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	Nakajima Atsushi and the Furry Brigade, As Narrated By Akutagawa Ryuunosuke and, On Occasion, the Archivist

Akutagawa Ryuunosuke officially hated his life. He hated his life, he hated the weretiger, he hated the NotThem, and he  _ especially _ hated each and every one of the Hunt avatars he, the weretiger, Lucy Montgomery, and Izumi Kyouka were currently in a fight to the death with. He didn’t know  _ what _ they had done to piss them off. One minute, Atsushi was saying that  _ maybe _ the fact that Oda Sakunosuke had broken out of jail wasn’t that great, and then five  _ fucking _ furries descended from the heavens to fight them.

Ok, maybe they weren’t wearing fursuits. But they  _ did _ turn into a fucking  _ wolf pack _ , and Atsushi turned into a tiger in retaliation, and that was enough to call them a bunch of fucking furries in Akutagawa’s book. And now they were all fighting, because  _ fuck Akutagawa’s life _ .

And then Atsushi’s phone rang, and one of the fucking furries grabbed it, checked the contact, and  _ fucking answered _ . 

At least that evened the odds of the fight a little. Four Hunt avatars versus one Hunt, two Slaughter, and a Stranger avatar rather than  _ five _ Hunt avatars versus one Hunt, two Slaughter, and a Stranger avatar. That was, until the Hunt avatar shoved the phone into Akutagawa’s face and he was forced to talk with Sakaguchi Ango about hunting down Dazai, which sounded...really great, actually, to Akutagawa, especially since one, he would be getting paid, and two, what better way was there for getting a bunch of Hunt avatars off his back then to send them on a  _ hunt _ ?

“Hey! Motherfuckers!” he shouted. “Sakaguchi’s gonna pay us to hunt down Dazai and bring it back to his house, and he said you random other five hunters can tag along--”

“Is Odasaku going to be there?” asked one of the boy furries.

“Probably, they’re mcfucking married. Sakaguchi good as said he was there--yes, I tried to faust you guys off on him. Didn’t work. Also if you help us find Dazai and don’t, like, kill any of us you’ll get paid.”

The five fucking furries muttered among each other for a few minutes before one of the boys, in a red vest and sunglasses, stepped to the front. “Sure. On one condition.”

“What is it?” asked the weretiger, wiping the blood away from his quickly healing nose.

“No matter  _ what _ , you take us to see Odasaku after. We don’t give a shit about the money, we can steal it or steal stuff. Who’s gonna stop us? We just want to see Odasaku.”

“If we can find him, then you have a deal,” the weretiger said. “I’m Atsushi, by the way. Nakajima Atsushi.”

“I’m Kousuke. These are Katsumi, Shinji, Yu, and Sakura.”

“We didn’t fucking ask,” said Akutagawa.

“Wait,” the weretiger said, “Oda’s kids? I thought he murdered you.”

“Just rip off the bandaid, why don’t you,” muttered Lucy.

“No! We were kidnapped by Gide for like four years, and he told Odasaku that if he didn’t kill for him, he would kill us!” shouted one of the furries. It wasn’t the same one who had spoken before, and Akutagawa had already forgotten their names. Sue him. 

“Oh. Huh. That takes away, like, 90% of my reasons for hating him,” said the weretiger.

“Coward,” said Akutagawa, who only disliked Oda because the weretiger did.

“Cool. Now let’s find Dazai!”

The five fucking furries and the weretiger started debating different modes of tracking Dazai, while Lucy started repairing her current skin and Kyouka and Akutagawa sharpened their knives, just for the fun of it. As Slaughter avatars, they both had an endless supply of knives, and their knives were endlessly sharp, but it wasn’t like they had any desire to get involved with a group of Hunt avatars discussing their newest hunt. Honestly, it was almost frightening how they could go from at each other's throats one minute to animatedly discussing ways to hunt down a sentient hallway as if they had been friends all their life. 

Almost.

Akutagawa didn’t get afraid easily.

After about five minutes, the weretiger and the five fucking furries turned to Akutagawa, Kyouka, and Lucy.

“Kunikida’s been keeping tabs on the Distortion since he figured out Tanizaki wasn’t actually Dazai, so we think that we should start by asking him if he’s seen it in a few weeks,” Atsushi said.

“Sure thing, jinko,” Akutagawa said, exchanging an eyeroll with Lucy. Seriously, it had taken them five minutes to figure that out? How dumb  _ were _ Hunters? “I assume you’ll be the one calling?”

“Me or Kyouka, since we’re his Assistants,” the weretiger said.

“You do it,” Kyouka said. “You’re a Hunter, it’ll make more sense for you to call him out of the blue asking about a--well, as far as he’s concerned, a monster, than it would for me to do it.”

The weretiger scowled. “Dazai isn’t a  _ monster _ .”

“I mean, it kinda is,” said the girl furry, fiddling with the sakura flower around her neck. “It’s the Distortion, which is a monster.”   
“It’s my  _ brother _ !”

“Ours too. That doesn’t stop it from being a monster. It’s not mutually exclusive.”

The weretiger and the girl furry glared at each other until Lucy stepped between them. “Okay! Let’s continue this argument  _ after _ we Hunt Dazai down, sound good?”

As the mannequin had probably suspected, the weretiger and the five fucking furries all perked up at the word “Hunt” and the weretiger pulled his phone out of his pocket and quickly tapped the Archivist’s contact.

“Hello? Yes, this is Atsushi...I haven’t seen h...it in a few weeks, so I’m Hunting down the Distortion, and I was wondering if you had...oh, really, that’s wonderful! No, there shouldn’t be any danger in going in, it won’t eat you, plus you’re the Archivist so it would be hard to digest you anyway. Cool. Yeah, we’ll be there in about a half hour, see you then!” He turned off his phone and grinned guilelessly at them. “Dazai’s been hanging around in Kunikida’s office for the past few weeks! Kunikida’s going to go in and check out the situation for us, and then we can meet in the Archives and talk things out.”

“Awesome!” said the fucking furry with the baseball cap, and the five of them immediately turned into wolves and started running towards the Archives.

“...What the fuck,” said Lucy. “Atsushi, you had  _ better _ not join them.”

The weretiger shook his head, grinning. “No, don’t worry, I’ll drive with you! Wolves are faster than tigers, anyway, and I want to beat them there.”

“Of course you do,” Akutagawa muttered, as Lucy tossed Atsushi her car keys. Stranger avatars were good for a lot of things, but when it came to navigation, Hunters were just that much better.

They piled into the car like so many clowns, and headed towards the Institute.

Kunikida could not say why he had entered the Distortion. It had been calling for so long, an ever-present hum behind his desk chair, reminiscent of his days as an Assistant, when Dazai, bored from work, would drape himself over Kunikida’s shoulders and whine and tease, all in an effort to get him to slack off with him. Kunikida had always snapped at him and told him to get back to work, we’re on the clock dammit, do you really want Shachou to catch us both slacking off? And what if he told the Head of the Institute? 

But sometimes, Kunikida would fondly tell him off and then find himself huddled across a table from--Dazai, and Yosano, sometimes, cards in their hands, smiling, laughing,  _ happy _ . He would regret it the next day, but now, years later, Kunikida wished he had done it more. If he had known how Dazai would die, he would have done it more. Maybe that would soften the grief and the guilt that he was trying to push away with work and more work.

But Atsushi was Hunting the Distortion, and Kunikida thought maybe he could distract it by feeding himself to it for a time--and besides, if the door vanished from his office, Atsushi would have better luck finding it through tracking Kunikida’s smell than its own.

And maybe losing himself to the Spiral for a little while would be enough to drown out his awful, choking grief.

He opened the door.

There was this sense of...delight, and fear, and hurt, but it wasn’t his. The delight was like when he would deign to play cards with Dazai (and sometimes Yosano) when they should be working, and the fear and hurt like when he found Dazai having a breakdown (something he always tried to hide from everyone, except occasionally Shachou), cutting and constructing a noose and crying so, so quietly.

Why was it that everything reminded him of Dazai? He was six years dead, and sure, Kunikida hadn’t known--hadn’t remembered--until recently. But he shouldn’t be feeling as though he was right there, waiting for Kunikida. That wasn’t how greif worked, right? It hadn’t been how he had grieved Shachou-- _ was grieving _ Shachou. It didn’t even really feel like Dazai was gone. It felt like Dazai was there, waiting for him, and that  _ hurt _ . 

Maybe ghosts  _ were _ real, maybe Dazai’s was with him, watching over him. Did it understand that he was dead, or was it hurt that Kunikida was ignoring him? He hoped that wasn’t the case. If Dazai’s ghost was hanging around him, he hoped it understood that he was doing his best, that he hadn’t  _ meant _ to forget him. It was that damn NotThem, the NotThem and the Distortion working together to ruin Kunikida’s fucking life.

And here he was walking into the Distortion.

Well, that was alright, Atsushi was Hunting it down and would probably kill it, extract their revenge for Dazai. He was very good at that, even if he hadn’t seemed to realize the Distortion was what took Dazai from them. Kunikida had never pressed the issue. His Assistant was very observant, and would figure it out soon enough--as he obviously had, judging by the phone call. So Kunikida stepped through the door that felt  _ so much _ like Dazai, happy he was giving him the attention he so craved, upset he was seeing him in such a terrible state, and  _ God _ he hated that the Distortion felt like that.

But no matter. 

He had to experience as much of the Spiral as he could, so that he could give himself and  _ excellent _ Statement, and so he started off down the hallway at a brisk clip, not even stopping to see whether the door he’d entered through was still there. He’d read enough statements to know it wouldn’t be.

It almost made sense, the lack of sense in the hallways. The garish paint in colors that Kunikida hadn’t thought humans could perceive (shrimp colors, Dazai would have called them, because shrimp could perceive so many more colors than humans--how had Kunikida Known that? No matter. At least he did. At least he had another piece of Dazai that couldn’t be stolen away no matter what happened), the mirrors and doors and odd angles and--what was that? In that mirror there? No, it couldn’t be…

“Dazai!” Kunikida shouted, because that was  _ him _ , through the mirror, in the Distortion, bewildered, wrapped in those  _ stupid _ bandages, and so, so young.

Dazai (was it Dazai? Could it possibly be him?) startled and turned to him, meeting his eyes through the mirror, and his face was terrified but full of a desperate, lonely longing.

“Dazai,” Kunikida said again, “is that...is that really you?”

“Who are you?” Dazai asked, his voice shaking, with a slightly inhuman cadence. 

Of course, it had been six years, Kunikida was 22 and the Archivist now. Of course Dazai didn’t recognize him.

“It’s me, Kunikida,” he said, because he was sure, so sure that Dazai would recognize his name, pin it to his face. “God, have you been in here since we were 16? You don’t look like you’ve aged a day! Come on, I’ll help you get out of here.” He reached out his hand to Dazai, still on the other side of the mirror, and Dazai stared at it as though he had no idea what it was. Maybe he didn’t. He had been in here for so long. 

“Can’t,” Dazai whispered. “Have to keep going. Protect my family. They’re all that matters. They’re the only thing that’s important.”

“Your family,” Kunikida echoed. Atsushi, Kyouka. Oda, Sakaguchi. The Archival Assistants? But how would Dazai staying trapped here protect them? “Can you tell me about them?”

How much do you remember, he wanted to say. Am I a part of your family, he wanted to ask. But he couldn’t. God, he couldn’t. Dazai was right  _ there _ , and he could barely get the words out, his wonderful, annoying, lost…

“Yes. Kitten, and soft baby girl, and I love him, and alone, and he killed for me.” Dazai’s voice softened as he listed out the attributes, and God, he had forgotten their names but Kunikida  _ Knew _ who Dazai meant--kitten was Atsushi, soft baby girl Kyouka, I love him was  _ Kunikida _ , alone had to be Ango, and he killed for me was almost certainly Oda.

“I love you too,” Kunikida whispered, feeling like his heart had been wrenched out of his chest. How long had Dazai been trapped in here? Six years, yes, but--did it feel like six years for him? Was it longer? Shorter? In what condition would he be when Kunikida got him out? Would he suddenly age? Grow younger? Stay the same?--But the mirror through which he could see Dazai was twisting like wet paint, Dazai blurring and changing and wow, what the  _ fuck _ was that thing?

Because Kunikida could see a figure--two figures--one figure--something that looked like Dazai, eternally merging and separating with a long, distorted, Spiraling shape, like the visual personification of the statement “what the fuck”, which, coincidentally, was what exited Kunikida’s mouth when he saw it.

It--they--whatever--was clearly in terrible pain, screaming and sobbing and twisting, twisting, twisting, and was entirely unaware that Kunikida was even there. He felt uprooted, this near to it, as if he could be anywhere at any time and this would still be happening, somewhere, right here, burned into his eyes forever.

How could Dazai be merging with the Distortion like this? It should be impossible...it should be impossible and yet…

The Spiral thrived off of the impossible. So Dazai, after being trapped here for so many years, might actually  _ become _ the Distortion.

The Distortion that Chuuya had said followed Kunikida around.

The Distortion that had encamped itself in Kunikida’s office for  _ weeks _ , giving off an aura of Dazai teasing him and calling him off work.

The Distortion that hated Chuuya and found dropping vomit on him amusing.

The Distortion that Atsushi seemed to adore, as much as he’d idolized Dazai…

Oh,  _ fuck _ .

It didn’t make sense for Dazai to be brought back from something like that. In fact, it was impossible to do that.

And the Spiral thrived off of the impossible.

Kunikida stepped forward, through the mirror, towards the hated Distortion, towards  _ Dazai _ \--

And then he was back in his office, chair, desk, door, other door, Statements, pens, everything where it had always been, except the fact that it was all just slightly  _ off _ , a mirror image of his office. And perched on the desk, staticky and spiraling, was the Thing, the Distortion, that Dazai had been separating and merging with, separating and merging with.

“What the fuck,” Kunikida said again, whirling around and trying the door.

_ aH aH aAHH _ , the thing seemed to say.

“What. The fuck.”

_ yOU CANNOT TAKE hIM AWAY FROM mE _ .

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Kunikida said with a vicious grin, and was rewarded with the office trembling, for a swift moment before it was just  _ slightly _ off once more.

_ iT WAS YOUR WORDS WHICH GAVE hIM TO mE IN THE FORM hE HAS RESIDED IN. iT WAS YOUR WORDS THAT LEFT hIM WITH THE CAPACITY TO LOVE. bE HAPPY WITH THAT. oDA sAKUNOSUKE HAS DONE hIS LEVEL BEST TO STRIP hIM AWAY FROM mE, BUT hE WILL NOT SUCCEED. dAZAI oSAMU IS  _ MINE _ NOW, AND ALWAYS WILL BE _ .

“Makes perfect sense,” said Kunikida. He smiled sweetly at the Distortion. “You don’t have a single flaw in your logic. Freeing Dazai from you wouldn’t make  _ any _ sense whatsoever.”

He could  _ feel _ the anger permeating the air, but didn’t try to rationalize it. He didn’t try to make anything make sense to him--except, of course, the impossibility of getting Dazai back.

_ yOU INSOLENT ARCHIVIST! iF YOU DO NOT COOPERATE, i WILL KEEP yOU IN HERE FOREVER! _

“Yeah, that checks out,” said Kunikida, pulling on every memory of Dazai’s various techniques for annoying people. He seriously doubted Dazai would still be around if he’d been annoying the Distortion for the past six years, which meant that it had  _ no _ resistance to Dazai-brand annoyances. So all Kunikida had to do was emulate his former (?) boyfriend, and maybe, just maybe, they would make it out.

_ aaaaaAAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHH! _

“Are you feeling alright?” Kunikida asked innocently. “It doesn’t make any sense for you to be upset.”

_ aaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH! _

This...this was really fun, actually. Kunikida was starting to get why Dazai had enjoyed annoying him so much, although he still didn’t get why Dazai had kept going whenever Kunikida would lash out--

The Distortion’s long, sharp fingers punctured Kunikida’s torso and threw him into the bookshelf.

\--in anger. 

Ouch.

He really hated seeing himself in a fear-monster, he really did.

This was not fun at all.

Neither was the blood quickly streaking down his shirt, and he  _ really _ missed being in the actual Archives and getting information streamed into his head directly from the Eye, because knowing exactly how bad his injury was and how much blood loss was fatal and...stuff...would be really, really useful right now.

Although he wasn’t hurting too bad right now. He felt almost...nice. Like he was floating above his body...and he was warm, too, but also somehow cold at the same time.

That was odd.

He thought he had read something about things like this once, when people lost a lot of blood…

**_You’re in shock and you’ve lost a lot of blood_ ** , the Eye oh-so-helpfully pointed out.

...Oh.

Yeah, that made sense.

...made sense…

...made  _ sense _ .

Kunikida felt himself rush back to himself. He was still bleeding just as much, which wasn’t good, but at least he could think in a semi-straight line once more. He was stuck to the wall by the copious amounts of blood coming out of his shirt, and the Distortion was watching, pleased. Kunikida Knew that it would only stay there for a moment more before returning to tormenting Dazai. He Knew that, without a human to embody, it would soon cease to exist.

What he did not know was how to keep it in this facsimile of his Archive.

And then a fucking  _ wolf pack _ burst through his office door.

  
  


It turned out that they had to take the highway to get to the Institute. And it turned out that wolves could  _ not _ cross the highway in relative safety. So Akutagawa had to deal with the humiliating ordeal of five  _ fucking _ wolves climbing into Lucy’s nice clean car. This would be  _ so hard _ to get clean, and Lucy and the weretiger didn’t really care about the cleanliness of the car, and Kyouka rarely took the car, preferring the subway, because there she could take care of any creeps who thought that preying on girls was fun. Which meant that it would fall on  _ Akutagawa _ to clean it. And nobody ever thought about that, did they? No, nobody ever thought  _ Akutagawa _ would be voluntarily cleaning things. Nobody ever thought to ask him about it, or thank him for it, or anything! No, it was always, “Take a bath, Akutagawa!” or “You stink, Akutagawa!” or “When was the last time you washed your coat, Akutagawa, the Stone Ages?” and that was just  _ annoying _ . So what if he didn’t take baths? That didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate cleanliness in  _ other _ areas of his life!

Sadly, everyone ignored his grumbling about wet-dry vacs and window polish as the five fucking furries made themselves comfortable and they made their way to the Magnus Institute. It was easy enough to park and get inside, and for once Kirako Haruno was actually at the front desk rather than falling through the cosmos courtesy of Tanizaki Naomi, who was, incidentally, also there, amusing herself by dropping marbles in an infinite loop. They were waved cheerfully through and quickly made their way down to the Archives.

“Dazai’s here!” the weretiger cheered, rushing over to the yellow door covering the Archivist’s office and tugging at it.

It didn’t open.

The weretiger pulled harder.

It still did not open.

“Dazai, I know you’re there!” the weretiger called. “It’s me, Atsushi--”

He was cut off by a pain-wracked scream coming from inside the office.

“Leave this to us,” said one of the five fucking furries--it was hard to tell which one, because they were already looking  _ really _ wolfish--and the five of them charged at the door as one, knocking it clean off its hinges. And on the other side of the door…

Well. It wasn’t Dazai,  _ that  _ was for freaking sure.

The Archivist was attached to the wall, groaning, covered in blood and completely out of it. Peeling back the wall was what appeared to be the Distortion  _ minus _ Dazai’s body and personality, busily peeling back the wall to reveal...Dazai, looking like he was in severe pain (which, Akutagawa mused, was to be understood, if he had just been forcibly peeled away from the Distortion by the Archivist) and extremely out of it.

Luckily, the Distortion wasn’t able to do much else, by virtue of being attacked by a pack of  _ fucking wolves _ .

“I guess they were useful after all,” Akutagawa mused as he stepped carefully into the Distortion, his coat transforming into a black demon.

“Yeah, well, what problem  _ wouldn’t _ be eradicated by siccing a pack of wolves on it?” Lucy replied as they made their merry way over to the Archivist. “Sure, it might result in a totally  _ different _ problem...like murder charges...but the  _ initial _ problem would be gone.” 

“I don’t need a wolf pack to gain murder charges,” Akutagawa said loftily, using Rashoumon to hoist the Archivist over his shoulder. The man groaned, but Akutagawa opted to ignore it, hoping to get the man to safety with enough time to join the weretiger and Kyouka in rescuing Dazai--as his younger siblings and the first to regain their memories of him, they had dibs on saving him, and of course he and Lucy would be left with the most boring of the jobs--bringing the Archivist to safety, because  _ wow _ , those were some  _ serious _ stab wounds. 

“Good thing he has advanced healing,” muttered Lucy.

“Amen,” Akutagawa muttered back. “Although--if he’s developed enough, he  _ might _ be able to beat back the End like we have.”

“Fair,” she said. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see, huh?”

“Guess so.” He dropped the Archivist unceremoniously onto the couch and turned back to the Distortion, but the weretiger and Kyouka were already helping Dazai out into the Archives proper. He looked confused and in pain, but at least he wasn’t screaming anymore. His legs gave out a few steps away from the door, so Akutagawa sent Rashoumon over to support him--and it turned back into regular cloth when it touched his skin.

Well.

That was new.

Akutagawa hurried over and helped carry Dazai with just his weak, weak arms, and they had just gotten him settled on the couch, curled between the weretiger and Kyouka, bony and warm and  _ clearly _ human again, when the five fucking furries and the Distortion came tumbling out of the door.

The weretiger snarled, elongated fangs coming out of his mouth and fur sprouting along his face, and Akutagawa had just enough time to think,  _ huh, maybe the whole Dazai-taking-away-powers thing was just my imagination _ before he was watching the  _ idiotic _ weretiger launch himself at the  _ definitely much more powerful monster _ as Kyouka tugged on his coat sleeve and whispered, “Akutagawa, I can’t feel Demon Snow.”

The murderous ghost of Kyouka’s mother was never far from the girl, but Akutagawa realized he couldn’t see it anywhere, either. And then he looked at Dazai’s head on Kyouka’s shoulder, his hand carding through her hair, and thought that maybe, Rashoumon’s earlier disappearance hadn’t been his imagination at all.

“Rashoumon vanished earlier, too, when I touched Dazai,” Akutagawa whispered back. “I think that since he’s gotten untangled from one Power, the rest can’t touch him either.”

“Makes sense,” Kyouka whispered back, and since she seemed to have come to the same conclusion Akutagawa had--that the weretiger and the five fucking furries were more than a match for the now door-less Distortion--she leaned her head on top of Dazai’s. And Akutagawa wasn’t sure, but he thought that maybe he could see a small small playing about his former mentor’s lips.

And then he wasn’t seeing much of anything at all, because the weretiger had come crashing into his  _ face  _ and they both went tumbling over the edge of the couch.

“Watch where you’re going, dumbass!” Akutagawa shouted. 

“Hey, I can’t control where I land!” the weretiger shouted back, hurling himself at the Distortion again. Akutagawa groaned and launched Rashoumon at it as though weaponized cloth could do anything against a being of pure insanity. 

It couldn’t, of course, but a moment later the Distortion started shaking, as though it couldn’t support itself--and maybe, outside of its hallways, in the pupil of the Eye, where things made oftentimes too much sense, it couldn’t. Its limbs were made of light, and light can’t attack anything, and almost as soon as Akutagawa thought that, it collapsed, shrieking, and vanished.

The weretiger, still flying through the air towards it, faceplanted into the wall. 

Akutagawa laughed at him, of course, and the weretiger glared at him before jumping back to the couch and going to cuddle Dazai--and transforming fully back into a human the moment he touched him.

Huh.

The weretiger looked confused, but it was a human sort of confusion, with no cat-like traits in there, which was even weirder. Akutagawa literally couldn’t remember a time when the weretiger hadn’t exhibited  _ some _ cat-like traits, but even his eyes were normal now, a dazzling shade of violet with human pupils.

He would definitely have to look into this later, after Dazai had recovered enough that he was capable of doing more than laying on top of Kyouka, the weretiger, and the Archivist.

Oh  _ fuck _ , the Archivist!

He was still bleeding  _ all over _ the couch, and was probably getting  _ really _ close to  _ actual _ death. Akutagawa yanked him away from Dazai, and didn’t even get a groan--the man was  _ out _ . 

The weretiger frowned up at him. “What was that for?”

“I think that after getting cut off from the Spiral, Dazai nullifies  _ any _ fears he comes into contact with, including the Eye that should have been healing the Archivist,” Akutagawa told him.

“Oh,  _ shit _ ,” said one of the five fucking furries, glancing around at his compatriots. “Is that, like, even  _ possible _ ?”

“Apparently,” Akutagawa told him. “At any rate, the Archivist is starting to heal now and this is the most human the weretiger has looked in  _ years _ . Usually he at least has cat eyes, but not now.”

Kyouka peered over at the weretiger, who widened his eyes obligingly for her. “You’re right,” she said, sounding surprised.

“Let me see,” Lucy demanded, pulling the weretiger’s eyes open wider and staring at them. “Yep, he’s right! One hundred percent human,  _ zero _ Hunt. Weird.”

Akutagawa stared at the weretiger critically. Usually he perked up whenever the word “hunt” was mentioned, and the five fucking furries had  _ definitely _ jumped to attention when Lucy said it, but this time the weretiger just wriggled his face out of Lucy’s hands and pressed it into Dazai’s jacket. 

“Please don’t do that,” he complained. 

Akutagawa and Lucy exchanged exasperated glances before Lucy jumped up, clapping her plastic hands.

“Alright, everybody! Time for a roadtrip to Moorland House!”

“Roadtrip?” asked the girl furry.

“Yeah, it’s six hours away by car, because Sakaguchi  _ loves _ isolating himself, apparently. Luckily, I have the ability to change the inside of my car, so we’ll have plenty of space!”

“You have the ability to do  _ what _ ?!” shouted Akutagawa. “Does that mean it can clean itself?!”

“Uh, yeah, how  _ else _ would we have gotten all the bloodstains out? It’s not like any of us have any real cleaning experience.”   
“I’ve been scrubbing out your car every week for four years!”

“Well, you didn’t have to,” Lucy said. “Now that you know it’s self-cleaning, maybe you can put that energy into taking baths?”

“Ew. No.”

“Actually, he doesn’t seem to stink as much right now,” the weretiger called from the couch.

“ _ Thank _ you.”

“That’s because you don’t have your heightened senses right now, dumbass,” Lucy called back.

“Oh. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense.”

“ _ Fuck _ you.”

“Sure, if you take a bath!” the weretiger shouted. Akutagawa grabbed a box of statements and lobbed it at him.

Kyouka batted it out of the way. “Do not hit Dazai,” she said, and her voice could be just as cold when she wasn’t connected to the Slaughter. Dazai looked up slightly when she said his name, and she smiled down at him and patted his hair, and his head sank down once more.

“Ok, we should get going before Dazai  _ actually _ passes out,” said one of the boy furries. 

Akutagawa nodded, and joined the weretiger and Kyouka in supporting Dazai out, as Lucy and a couple of the furries hefted the healing Archivist--still unconscious, but bleeding less--and transported them into the car, which was  _ much _ bigger on the inside than it had been on the trip there.

“Welcome to Anne’s Room!” Lucy declared as everyone got settled--the Archivist was placed carefully on the floor, the five fucking furries got window seats, Akutagawa took shotgun, and the weretiger and Kyouka snuggled up was Dazai on a mattress in the back.

“Why’s it called Anne’s Room?” asked one of the furries.

“Anne was the original owner of this car, back in 194...5, I think? ‘45 or ‘46. And then Anne was repurposed, and the car was repurposed, and now I’m Lucy! I named the car Anne’s Room for nostalgic purposes, though. After all, it used to be Anne’s car, and Anne was all peeled and cut up in here!”   
“Cool,” said the furry. 

“Wow, Dazai’s conked out!” called the weretiger. “He passed out as soon as we got onto the mattress with him!”

“It’s because of your hugs!” Lucy called back. “They’re seriously great, like a nice, fuzzy, warm weighted blanket!”

“Really?” 

“No,” said Akutagawa.

“How do you know? You never hug him,” Kyouka pointed out.

“That’s because he’s  _ insanely _ touch-starved and the minute you hugged him  _ once _ he almost passed out from the sheer pleasure,” said Lucy.

“I did not!”

“Are you seriously going to argue with  _ me _ ?” she asked.

…

No, he was not.

She was right, anyway, but it wasn’t like he had to  _ say _ it. Instead he huffed, rolled his eyes, and looked out the window.

With no more Distortion-travel, this was shaping up to be a  _ long _ car ride.

Three hours in, the Archivist woke up. 

“What the fuck,” he said.

“Oh, my God, Kunikida actually swore!” hissed the weretiger in genuine delight.

“What? Atsushi? What’s going on? Where are we?”

“Anne’s Room!” Lucy said. “On our way to Moorland House to drop off Dazai, because we’re getting paid for it. You were, like,  _ seriously _ stabbed, so we decided to bring you with us in case we needed to drop you at a hospital. Also, I took the liberty of moisturizing you--your skin care routine isn’t  _ as _ terrible as Akutagawa’s, but it isn’t perfect, either, and if I ever need your skin for something I would like it to be in the best condition possible, please and thank you.”

“...Right,” said the Archivist. “And why are we bringing Dazai to Moorland House?”

“Because we’re getting paid, duh,” she said.

“Also, that’s probably where Odasaku is,” added one of the furries.

The Archivist frowned at him. “Who are you?”

“Shinji. That’s Yuu, Katsumi, Sakura, and Kousuke. We’re Hunt avatars and also Odasaku’s kids.”

“Huh. So my hunch  _ was _ right.”

“What hunch?” another furry asked.

“I heard Dazai’s Statement about Andre Gide, and he mentioned in it five children whom he and Nakahara Chuuya spared when they were going on their rampage against the Dark. I had thought it might be you--and I was correct.”

“Smart Archivist,” muttered a furry.

“Uh, thanks. So, if you don’t mind me asking--”

“We do,” every non-Assistant in the car chorused. And Akutagawa was only sure that the weretiger and Kyouka didn’t say anything because they didn’t want to wake Dazai.  _ Nobody _ liked compulsion.

“Right. I would like to know why we’re bringing Dazai to a Lonely stronghold, where he’s been for the last six years, and if he’s, ah,  _ alive _ .”

“The Eye didn’t tell you anything about him?” the weretiger asked. Akutagawa didn’t have to look to see that he was curling more protectively around his prone brother.

“No, nothing. As far as it’s concerned, he’s never existed at all, which is...really worrisome. Do you--I would like to know if you have any theories about that.”

“Actually, yeah, we do,” said the weretiger. “Akutagawa thinks that now that he’s been separated from the Distortion, none of the Fears can affect him. Right now, I’m touching him and I’m  _ totally _ cut off from the Hunt, and Kyouka…”

“I’m cut off from the Slaughter, too,” she said. “I missed Demon Snow a  _ lot _ , at first, but now it feels more normal and besides, she comes back when I stop touching him.”

“That’s fascinating,” said the Archivist. “Maybe, after all this--”

“Only if the Statement includes the cuddle pile, because that is the  _ only _ part of this I have  _ any _ desire of reliving,” said the weretiger.

“Understood,” said the Archivist.

“I’ll give one,” said Kyouka. “It was...nice, the fight. I wouldn’t mind doing it again.”

“Thank you. What about everyone else?”

“No from all of us, but I can give you one about our time with Gide,” said one of the furries.

“Hell fucking no, but if you need one I guess I can tell you about someone who’s skin I borrowed,” Lucy offered.

“Sure. Like Kyouka said, I would enjoy reliving the fight,” Akutagawa finished.

“Right. Thank you.” 

For a moment, Akutagawa thought the Archivist would ask for a Statement then and there, but luckily he fell silent, leaning against the mattress and closing his eyes, and they drove on.

The sun was setting when they reached Moorland House. For the past half hour, fog had rolled around the car, pressing in at them, and now everyone except for Lucy, who was driving, was curled together on the mattress, doing their level best to stave off the Lonely. Lucy, who was of the very vocal opinion that there was no way the Lonely could  _ possibly _ get into Anne’s Room, fell finally silent when they stopped outside of a large, metal gate, and the first tendril of fog wrapped itself around her wrist.

She shrieked and batted at it with her other hand--“Get it off get it off get it  _ fucking _ off!” and the weretiger disentangled himself from the cuddle pile (to Akutagawa’s eternal, unspoken disappointment--he really did give great hugs) and tackled her in a hug, which she returned, not even bothering to scoff at the physical affection, and subsequently lost control of the car, sending it careening through the gates and off the road. The cuddle pile was thrown against the wall, and several people screamed, but Dazai didn’t even wake up.

“Oh, motherfucker motherfucking Lonely!” Lucy shrieked, apparently deciding to mask her fear in anger. “That was my fucking  _ car _ !”

She slammed her door open and stomped out into the Lonely to assess the damages, the weretiger following, presumably to make sure she didn’t get lost. Akutagawa, Kyouka, and the Archivist unstuck Dazai from the window and, along with the five fucking furries, started assessing for injuries. Then Akutagawa heard Lucy’s cursing start up again.

“I’ll go check,” he offered, since he didn’t trust any of the furries around the weretiger and Kyouka and the Archivist were not likely to leave Dazai’s side  _ anytime _ soon.

“Thank you,” said the Archivist, who seemed to have come to the same conclusion, and Akutagawa hurried out of the car to see Sakaguchi Ango staring at the weretiger and Lucy, while Lucy tried to physically attack him and the weretiger held her back.

“What the fuck is going on here?” he asked.

“The Lonely bastard wrecked my  _ fucking _ car!”

“No, you drove it straight through the gates,” said Sakaguchi. “Why did you drive here anyway? Why not just use the Distortion?”

“Oh, uh, we kind of, uh...killed...it…?” the weretiger said sheepishly.

“You  _ what _ ?!” shouted Sakaguchi, and oh, fuck, that was a  _ lot _ of fog, and then Akutagawa was completely alone.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuckity fuck.

Rashoumon flared to life around him, but it didn’t do much to cut through the fog. That made sense--the Slaughter wasn’t really a good one to combat the Lonely. If only Gin were there…

Right. Gin. His sister, who he loved, who would  _ definitely _ notice if he went missing. She would notice, she would miss him, she loved him and he loved her,  _ she loved him and he loved her, and they would kill anyone who harmed the other, and Dazai loved Sakaguchi and wouldn’t take well to Gin killing him-- _

Sakaguchi appeared in front of him again, looking  _ furious _ , and he could see motion in Anne’s Room. The weretiger and Lucy were missing, which--well, that wasn’t Akutagawa’s problem.

He slammed his fist on the window. “Fucking drive!” he yelled, before launching himself at Sakaguchi, Rashoumon appearing and driving at him. He was countered by a wall of fog, but all he had to do was remember his sister and the song of the Slaughter in his veins before he was bursting through it, pushing Sakaguchi back and away from the car, which was looking a lot more normal without its mistress. It started up again and drove off, to Akutagawa’s relief. 

Now all he had to focus on was getting away from Sakaguchi, who appeared to be in the process of going mad with grief, which was weird--shouldn’t he be  _ happy  _ that they had managed to separate Dazai from the Distortion?

Whatever. The Entities fucked with your head, Akutagawa knew, and maybe Sakaguchi was so far gone that he believed the only way he could have any sort of meaningful connection with Dazai was if he were the Distortion.

...It probably wasn’t the greatest idea that the car was continuing towards Moorland House. Oh well. Kyouka was Slaughter too, and she would be able to fight Sakaguchi,  _ and _ she had the five fucking furries to help her, which might even things out a bit, even though Sakaguchi  _ did _ have the home court advantage. But as the car vanished down the long driveway, Sakaguchi’s blows lessened until he collapsed to his knees in front of Akutagawa, shaking with sobs. Akutagawa wasted no time in tying him down with Rashoumon.

“Why did you do it?” Sakaguchi wailed. 

Akutagawa sneered at how pathetic he looked. This man, really, was an avatar? This man, sobbing on the ground, fog choking him, had  _ killed _ people? Ridiculous.

“How could you--why would you-- _ why _ ?!”

“Oh shut  _ up _ ,” he snapped. “Stop sniveling and give back the weretiger and Lucy!”

Sakaguchi paid him no mind, sobbing like his heart was breaking.

“Shut  _ up _ !” Akutagawa yelled, sending Rashoumon tearing at the pathetic avatar, but he vanished into thick fog before he could do anything. “Goddamnit! Weretiger! Lucy! Where the fuck are you!”

It was hard to tell whether the area surrounding Moorland House was imbued with Lonely or if Akutagawa was actually  _ in _ the Lonely, so he just started walking towards the Moorland House, shouting for the weretiger and Lucy as he went.

It took a couple hours to actually get to the house. If Akutagawa thought that Sakaguchi still posed a threat to his companions, he would be worried, but the man’s spirit had seemed to be pretty thoroughly shattered when he had vanished and Akutagawa didn’t think he would be up for any more fighting for a while yet.

Even if he  _ did _ have the home-court advantage.

When he arrived at the house, the car was parked and empty, which wasn’t that great of a sign--maybe Sakaguchi  _ had  _ attacked them and somehow won--but he tried the door and it was unlocked, and when he got inside he found everyone (excluding the weretiger, Lucy, and Sakaguchi) together with Oda Sakunosuke. The five fucking furries were all wrapping around him in a group hug, and the Archivist and Kyouka were chatting on the couch, Dazai asleep between them.

Good.

Now all Akutagawa had to do was find the weretiger and Lucy before anyone noticed that he had lost them--

“Akutagawa, where’s Atsushi?” called Kyouka, getting up and walking over. “And Lucy?”

“Sakaguchi trapped them in the Lonely, and then escaped there before I could get him to bring them out,” he said. 

“What?! Why?!” Kyouka looked murderous, and he could see the glimmers of Demon Snow’s manifestation over her shoulder.

“I don’t  _ know _ . The weretiger mentioned that we’d killed the Distortion, and he went postal! I was only able to get out because I was envisioning Gin and I killing people together, and then he just kind of lost it!”

“...Did you mention that we separated Dazai from the Distortion  _ before _ we killed it?” she asked.

“No. Why would we? He lost it before we could say anything else, and besides, it’s  _ obvious _ .”

“No it isn’t, you idiot! It’s obvious to us because we were  _ there _ , but Ango’s been living with Dazai as the Distortion for years. I bet it never even  _ occurred _ to him that they could be separated, and so he thinks that you just killed Dazai in cold blood!”

“...Oh,” said Akutagawa. That had not occurred to him. Fuck. 

“Yeah. Oh. Now we need to find Ango and explain what  _ actually _ happened so we can get Atsushi and Lucy back. God, Akutagawa, you’re  _ such _ an idiot!”

“Oh shut up, it’s not like you did any better!”

“I wasn’t  _ there _ ! And now one of my brothers is in a  _ fucking _ coma, and the other is lost in the Lonely, and he’s  _ naturally _ susceptible to it, that’s why he joined the Hunt in the first place, so that he  _ wouldn’t _ fall in! And unless we get Ango to get him out, he might not get out  _ ever _ , because he has  _ shit _ self-esteem--not that  _ you’ve _ ever noticed or cared--and, and, even if Ango  _ does _ agree to let him out, he might not be able to  _ find _ him, and he might be gone  _ forever _ , and we don’t know what condition Dazai will be in when he wakes up, or even if he’ll wake up, and I might have just lost my  _ entire _ family, forever--don’t  _ touch _ me!”

She whirled around and buried a knife in the Archivist’s arm. He had been reaching for her, as if to comfort her, but Kyouka was  _ clearly _ not in a mood to be comforted, unless it was by her older brothers--her brothers who, by her own admission, were in no state to do any such thing.

“I’m sorry,” said the Archivist, carefully removing the knife from his arm. “I just wanted to ask if you would like me to try to use my connection to the Eye to find them. I don’t have much practice with locating people in the Lonely, but Shachou was able to do it with little to no issue, so if you’re alright with it, I could--”

“ _ Please _ ,” said Kyouka, her eyes wide and lips thin. “Please,  _ please _ find Atsushi. I don’t--I don’t even  _ care _ if you leave Ango or Lucy in there longer, just-- _ please _ bring Atsushi out.”

“I will,” the Archivist told her.

“Thank you,” she said. “I...is there anything I can do?”

“Not unless you feel like giving a Statement,” he said. “Otherwise, I’m probably going to record a few paper ones before--”

“I can  _ definitely _ do that. How many?”

The Archivist looked surprised. “I...I mean, any amount will help, but…”

“Right. Tell me to stop once you have enough power. Statement of Izumi Kyouka, regarding...the first time I met my brother Atsushi.”

A tape recorder appeared in the Archivist’s hand, already recording, and Akutagawa quickly walked away and settled himself on the couch next to Dazai. This wasn’t any of his business.

About an hour and a half later, when he was (unwillingly) drawn into conversation with Oda and the five fucking furries, he noticed Kyouka slip back into the room, looking drained, and curl against Dazai, closing her eyes. The front door opened, and then shut.

“He’s going to find Atsushi,” Kyouka whispered. “They’re  _ going _ to be ok.”

“They will be,” said Oda, and the furries nodded.

The only thing left to do now was to believe it.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the cliffhanger! I know I've been teasing the Kunikidazai reunion a LOT, and hopefully it will actually show up next installment...


End file.
